Young Photographers vs. Deforestation

In the context of the growing issues of deforestation in Europe and not only, and considering EU’s objective of reducing deforestation by 50% in 2020, we have decided a mobility project that unties young people in raising awareness towards this issue is of tremendous importance. Based on this insight and on studies about deforestation across Europe, we have also decided to use professional photography as our main tool in educating the participants. This choice comes in the context of digitalization of work and it offers us the chance to expand our participant’s career pool by teaching them new valuable skills.

There are three objectives we plan to achieve during the mobility:

To develop the participants’ knowledge and skills in photography through training and practical assignments, measured by the minimum of 5 professional photos/participant selected for the final exhibition in the 7th day of the project

To enhance the participants’ knowledge of the usability of photography skills in advertising, journalism, art, social activism, etc., through reflection groups and discussions, measured by the minimum 80% of participants who pass the written test in the 6th day of the project

To raise awareness regarding the dangers of deforestation in the local community of Brasov, measured by the minimum number of 100 people who choose to wear the T-shirts with the printed photographs of the participants in the 7th day of the project

After the mobility is over, we have one more objectives to achieve:

To gain media coverage and raise the awareness about the dangers of deforestation nationally measured through the minimum of 12 media references regarding the project in 3 months from the implementation of the project

To achieve our objectives, we have selected partners from 5 different countries (Romania, Portugal, Armenia, Poland and Serbia). There will be 7 participants per country, plus the team leaders (a total of 40 participants) and we have selected them to encourage gender, age, social and educational diversity.

The idea of the project is to raise awareness on the issue of deforestation in a creative way. We will also create the press release, contact the media and handle the administrative matters. The mobility’s activities are based on practical photography assignments, a professional photography training, creative workshops, debates and reflection groups regarding the importance of forests and also the importance of multiculturalism and tolerance towards other cultures. There will be a final exhibition with the participants’ photos in the 7th day of the project that will take place in the main square of Brasov city. We will have T-shirts with the printed photos made by the participants and a message regarding deforestation and we will offer people those T-shirts to wear them and take our message further. We will also create a video during this exhibition and use it to promote our cause to environmental NGOs and not only. After the mobility is over, we will continue to post on the Facebook page of the project, contact media and discuss with our partners about future related projects.